Obama up 10 in Minnesota

PPP's newest poll of the Presidential race in Minnesota actually finds Barack Obama expanding his lead to 10 points over Mitt Romney at 53-43. Our last poll there in mid-September had found Obama's advantage to be 7 points at 51-44. A majority of the interviews for this poll were conducted Saturday and Sunday

There's an overwhelming sense in Minnesota as elsewhere that Romney won last week's debate. 64% think he was the victor to only 19% who say Obama. But unlike in other places it hasn't led to a big improvement in Romney's image. Just 42% of voters have a favorable opinion of him to 53% with a negative one. That's actually slightly worse than a month ago when he was at 43/51.

Obama has a solid 53/45 approval rating. Voters trust him more than Romney both on the economy (50/44) and on foreign policy (54/41). Obama has a 49/41 lead with independents, has the advantage with both women (56/41) and men (50/45), and has at least a small lead within all four age groups.

In the Senate race Amy Klobuchar has expanded her already wide lead from 19 points to 26 over the last month. She's at 57% to 31% for opponent Kurt Bills.

Klobuchar probably would have been unbeatable for any opponent. She's one of the most popular Senators in the country with 59% of voters approving of her to 27% who disapprove. But Bills has proven to be particularly weak. Last month his name recognition in the state was 41%. Now it's actually dropped to 38%. He's not making himself any better known to the voters.

Klobuchar's winning by a whooping 37 point margin with independents at 59-22 and is winning 90% of the Democratic vote to Bills' 74% of Republicans.

We also asked about 2 of the other topics du jour in the Presidential race:

-Minnesota voters support federal funding for PBS by a 56/29 margin, including 55/27 with independents. They also give Big Bird a 61/7 favorability rating although there is somewhat of a partisan divide on him with Democrats giving him a 72/5 rating and Republicans just a 48/11 one.

-30% of voters think the Bureau of Labor Statistics is manipulating the unemployment statistics to help Barack Obama while 53% think it is not and 17% are not sure. Among voters describing themselves as 'very conservative' 76% buy into this conspiracy theory to only 10% who don't. By party Republicans thinks the numbers are skewed by a 61/16 margin while Democrats (9/81) and independents (29/53) don't think they are.

Full results here

Comments

[Obama 2012]

Pretty good evidence that Romney's bounce is fleeting.

And what the hell on that BLS conspiracy nonsense?! This just proves that "very conservative" people are basically insane. They have Obama Derangement Syndrome and absolutely no ability to look at the world in a realistic non-crazy way.